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Author of "The Hidden Hand," "Only a Girl's Heart," "Unknown,"
"The Lost Lady of Lone," "Nearest and Dearest," etc.

New York and London
Street & Smith, Publishers

1890

CHAPTER I.

A BRILLIANT MATCH.

"I remember Regulas Rothsay or Rule, as we used to call him when he
was a little bit of a fellow hardly up to my knee, running about
bare footed and doing odd jobs round the foundry. Ah! and now he is
elected governor of this State by the biggest majority ever heard of,
and engaged to be married to the finest young lady in the country, with
the full consent of all her proud relations. To be married to day and to
be inaugurated to morrow, and he only thirty two years old this blessed
seventh of June!"

The speaker, a hale man of sixty years, with a bald head, a sharp face,
a ruddy complexion, and a figure as twisted as a yew tree, and about as
tough, was Silas Marwig, one of the foremen of the foundry.

"Well, I don't believe Regulas Rothsay would ever have risen to his
present position if it had not been for his love of Corona Haught. No
more do I believe that Old Rockharrt would ever have allowed his
beautiful granddaughter to be engaged to Rothsay if the young man had
not been elected governor," observed a stout, florid faced matron of
fifty five. "How hard he worked for her! And how long she waited for
him! Why, I remember them both so well! They were the very best of
friends from their childhood the wealthy little lady and the poor
orphan boy."

"That is very true, Mrs. Bounce," said a young man, who was a newcomer
in the neighborhood and one of the bookkeepers of the great firm. "But
how did that orphan get his education?"

"By hook and by crook, as the saying is, Mr. Wall. I think the little
lady taught him to read and write, and she loaned him books. He left
here when he was about thirteen years old. He went to the city, and got
into the printing office of The National Watch . And he learned the
trade. And, oh, you know a bright, earnest boy like that was bound to
get on. He worked hard, and he studied hard. After awhile he began to
write short, telling paragraphs for the Watch , and these at length
were noticed and copied, and he became assistant editor of the paper. By
the time he was twenty five years old he had bought the paper out."

"And, of course, he made it a power in politics. I see the rest. He was
elected State representative; then State senator."

"Yes, indeed. You've hit it. And now he is going to marry his first love
to day, and to take his seat as governor to morrow," continued the
matron, with a little chuckle.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor," spoke a solemn
voice from the thicket on the right of the road along which the party
were walking to the scene of the grand wedding. All turned to see a
strange form step out from the shelter of the trees a tall, gaunt,
swarthy woman, stern of feature and harsh of tone; her head covered with
wild, straggling black hair; her body clothed in a long, clinging
garment of dark red serge.

"Old Scythia," muttered the matron, shuddering and shrinking closer to
the side of the bookkeeper, for the strange creature was reported and
believed by the ignorant and superstitious of the neighborhood to be
powerful and malignant.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor of this State!"

As the beldame repeated and emphasized these words, she raised her hand
with a prophetic gesture and advanced upon the group of pedestrians.

"Now, then, you old crow! What are you up to with your croaking?"
demanded Mr. Marwig. "Look here, Mistress Beelzebub! Do you know that
you are a very lucky woman to live in a land where not only may a
barefooted boy rise to the highest honors by talent and perseverance,
but where a malignant old witch may torture and terrify her neighbors
without fear of the ducking stool or the stake?" he demanded.